Screamer PCs

By J.B. MilesSpecial to GCNGo configure. A year ago, only a handful of leading computer manufacturers provided online stores that allowed buyers to design their own PCs, complete with a price update at the end of the process.At the time, I raved about them and wondered when other manufacturers would catch up.They have. For this Buyers Guide on powerful PCs, I checked about 75 manufacturers' Web sites and discovered more than 50 online stores that provide lists of base models, along with drop-down menus of CPUs, RAM, storage options and other niceties that let me customize the unit I wanted at a price within my range.This is good business for everybody, particularly savvy buyers willing to spend a few hours on the Internet before spending a dime.After a few months of relatively static growth, the PC market is taking off again. Per-unit PC prices aren't dropping much, but performance is soaring. PC shoppers now get more for their money than ever before, particularly for a midrange system priced between $1,500 and $2,500.To qualify as a screamer PC for this guide, I decided, each base unit had to come in desktop PC or minitower configurations with a 500-MHz or faster CPU and at least 128M of installed RAM. I set $2,500 as the most I'd pay for a unit with the options I wanted. The two exceptions came bundled with expensive 15-inch flat-panel LCD monitors.Where possible, I looked for 10G or larger hard drives and the fastest CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drives available. If options for video cards were offered, I chose those with the largest memories possible, typically 32M or 16M. Many of the base units came with 56-Kbps modems, sound cards and speakers. A few even had 10/100-Mbps Ethernet cards.If a decent 17-inch or 19-inch monitor could be bundled in for $2,500, I included it. In cases where choices among operating systems were given, I selected either Microsoft Windows NT Workstation or the new Windows 2000.Regardless of the label on the outside of the PC box, it's what's under the hood that counts. Just about every component of a PC, from its CPU to its hard drive, is made by a third-party manufacturer. So chances are that one manufacturer's PC isn't significantly different from another's, provided both include quality components.What should you look for in each component? A computer's central processing unit can be considered its engine or its brains, depending on how you look at it. A CPU is the most significant component of any PC, and many people judge a system's worth mainly by the speed of its CPU, measured in millions of cycles per second, or MHz.This approach is understandable, but not entirely accurate. Other factors, such as chip-set speed, type of memory and cache memory, hard-drive size and rotational speed, and bus speed also play a big role in the performance of any PC.With one exception'the Apple PowerPC G4, with a PowerPC processor'the revved-up PCs featured here all include either Intel Pentium III or Athlon processors. Virtually all the systems with Pentium III CPUs operate at 600-MHz or higher speeds; those with Athlon processors from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. of Sunnyvale Calif., operate at 650 MHz to 800 MHz.Although processor speed undeniably counts a lot, it is important to take into account the speed of the system bus and other factors. Pentium III processors running slower than 600 MHz come with 100-MHz buses; those running at 600 MHz and up feature 133-MHz buses. Because bus speed determines how quickly the system can transmit data between the CPU and RAM, a 133-MHz bus clearly provides a faster and more efficient system than a 100-MHz bus.All Pentium IIIs include a hefty 512K of Level 2 cache. L2 cache is where frequently used data is stored so that a PC seeking access to it doesn't have to search its entire system. Its presence increases overall system performance. The new 700-MHz and 733-MHz Pentium IIIs store an additional 256K of L2 cache directly on the chip for even faster access to data.The Athlon? Even better. The new AMD speedsters not only run fast, they offer a 200-MHz system bus, 128K of integrated Level 1 cache'as opposed to the Pentium III's 32K'and 512K of L2 cache that can be expanded to 8M.Systems running either 600-MHz or faster Pentium III CPUs or 650-MHz or faster Athlons are ideal for multitasking environments with lots of 3-D, computer-aided design, modeling and other high-end graphics applications, but benchmark tests of the 800-MHz Athlon show it is the CPU to beat.Intel Corp., meanwhile, is set to raise the ante again later this year with release of a 1-GHz Pentium III, which will have a 400-MHz system bus, and the company's 32-bit processor, currently code-named Wil-lamette, which will operate in excess of 1 GHz. Much was made of Intel's delay last year in releasing its heralded 820 chip set. But the new chip set, which augments the 2-D and 3-D graphics handling capability of its predecessor, the 810E, has arrived.Its main benefit is that it supports Rambus dynamic RAM, which purportedly will boost system performance over the synchronous dynamic RAM that comes with most PCs. But many new systems don't yet include the 820.There's another problem for unwary buyers: Many manufacturers' specification sheets don't mention a word about the chip set used. Many so-called fast PCs pair a Pentium III CPU with one of Intel's older, slower BX chip sets.So if you want to know more about the chip set bundled into your new PC, you'll probably have to ask. Today's complex applications require loads of memory, so 64M of RAM should be considered minimum in any system you buy. At today's prices, I would not buy one with less than 128M.Systems with available 64M dual inline memory modules, rather than a string of 16M DIMMs, are best when it comes to adding even more RAM. Today's screamers can add up to 1G of RAM, which makes for a very powerful PC indeed. Most of the PCs listed in this Buyers Guide come with IDE drives that, because they plug directly into a system's motherboard and don't require a controller, are cheaper and easier to install than SCSI drives. They are perfectly satisfactory for most users unless additional expansion requirements dictate the use of a 10,000 rpm SCSI drive and controller.IDE drives run at two speeds, 5,400 rpm and 7,200 rpm. The latter generally is preferable for high-speed data storage and retrieval.As for size, the bigger the better. The price difference between an 8G and 10G drive is minimal, so for an extra $30 or $40, why not gain 20 percent more storage capability? Many of the PCs listed in the accompanying chart can be configured with 20G or bigger drives for only $100 or so more than the asking price of the base unit. CD-ROM drives are still the mainstay of most PCs in this price range, although newer DVD-ROM drives that will read virtually any type of CD are making a strong showing in new systems.In some cases, a CD-R or CD-RW drive is bundled with a unit for an extra $100 or $150. Many systems also offer an Iomega Zip drive from Iomega Corp of Roy, Utah, as an extra storage option; a few of those listed provide them as standard equipment.If you can afford it, consider a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive for your basic storage needs, along with a CD-RW for copying and storing extra data. Microsoft Windows 98 still reigns supreme among the OSes bundled with the units listed, but most vendors will readily switch it out for Windows NT Workstation or even the new Windows 2000 OS for an extra charge.Why Windows 2000? At the date of this writing, I haven't tried it yet, but it purportedly is as stable as NT and therefore more reliable than Windows 95 or 98. For legacy applications, I would select NT Workstation over Windows 98 if it is available as an option. I generally don't expect much from a monitor bundled with a sub-$2,500 system, but sometimes I have been pleasantly surprised. Many of the products listed here come standard with 17-inch displays boasting 0.26 mm or 0.27 mm dot pitch, and a few come with 19-inch monitors with the same or even better ratings.Two of the systems listed, DTK Computer's APRI-80M/PIII and Toshiba America Information Systems' Equium 7350D, can be bundled with a 15-inch flat-panel LCD monitor, although this boosts the price of the systems over my targeted $2,500. Most of the PCs in this category come in desktop PC or minitower configurations that allow you to expand their capabilities by adding a new graphics card, modem, scanner card or other device. In today's systems, faster PCI and Universal Serial Bus connections are displacing the older 16-bit ISA buses. Look for a system that has three to five PCI slots and perhaps one PCI/ISA slot for an older card. You'll also want one or two USB ports for plug-and-play and hot-swapping capabilities, one or two PC Card ports and at least one Accelerated Graphics Port for high-speed 3-D data handling. There are lots of video cards out there with titillating names such as ATI Rage Pro, Voodoo Banshee and S3 Savage. For basic computing requirements, including 2-D graphics, almost any video card will do, as long as it has at least 8M of synchronous graphics RAM. For high-end multimedia, including Internet work, look for a video card with 16M or even 32M of SGRAM. Virtually all PCs in this roundup come with sound cards, and many of them are bundled with speakers. Discerning listeners might want to upgrade both the cards and speakers, but for most purposes the components coming with your new screamer will be adequate. Most new PC systems come with 56-Kbps V.90 modem cards. A few come standard with 10/100-Mbps Ethernet cards, which saves time and labor if you are going to install your PC on a departmental network.XXXSPLITXXX-XXXSPLITXXX-